Japan Bureaucracy

It's enough to make Japanese reformers suck air through their teeth in frustration and despair. In a case that is becoming an infamous symbol of red tape run amok, one of Japan's preeminent economists has been invited to join the board of Sony Corp.

It's enough to make Japanese reformers suck air through their teeth in frustration and despair. In a case that is becoming an infamous symbol of red tape run amok, one of Japan's preeminent economists has been invited to join the board of Sony Corp.

Two of Japan's top commercial banks, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi Ltd. and Sumitomo Bank Ltd., were implicated Monday in a widening bribery scandal that has shamed the powerful Finance Ministry. The scandal centers on allegations that two senior ministry bureaucrats were wined and dined by financial institutions in exchange for tipping them off about ministry inspections.

In Japan, where bureaucrats write the laws, chart the nation's course and manipulate many politicians from the shadows, Health Minister Naoto Kan has shattered conventions. With his straightforward, grass-roots appeal and earthy oratory, the 48-year-old Kan has taken on the bureaucrats and challenged their grasp on political power.

May 14, 1995 | James A. Baker III, James A. Baker III served as secretary of state from 1989-1992 and Treasury secretary from 1985-1988

U.S.-Japan relations are in trouble. Talks aimed at opening the Japanese market to U.S. cars and car parts have stalled amid rancor on both sides. Wednesday, the Clinton Administration announced it intends to take Japan to the new World Trade Organization for a ruling on unfair Japanese trade practices. U.S. trade sanctions against Japan could have major effect. The U.S.

Final figures are expected to show that Japan's trade surplus with the United States last year soared to a whopping $50 billion, an increase of nearly one-third over 1984. With that kind of trend, can new congressional demands for protectionism be far behind? Probably not, but in any fresh clamor for cutting imports the old truism ought not to be lost sight of: Protectionism is never cost-free.

The dollar soared to a seven-year high against the yen on Friday, capping a disheartening week for Japan that saw investors flee, stocks tumble and critics here and abroad step up their attacks on the government's handling of a deteriorating economy.

Confidence in the Japanese economy plummeted Wednesday when a deepening financial scandal engulfed the central bank, the heart of Japan's financial system and an institution thought to be above politics and corruption. In an unprecedented raid on the 116-year-old Bank of Japan that sent the yen tumbling and investors running for safety, prosecutors arrested a top bank official on charges of giving out inside information in return for lavish dinners and other entertainment.

Last month, 10 million readers of Japan's largest newspaper woke up to shocking headlines: The Yomiuri Shimbun was breaking a 50-year taboo and urging a revision of the nation's pacifist constitution. Before that, viewers of TV Asahi's top-rated political talk show watched host Soichiro Tahara goad a finance bureaucrat and Liberal Democratic politician into verbal fireworks over who should run Japan--an exchange unprecedented on live television.

Japan's scandal-battered bureaucrats got another black eye Wednesday when a former top Health Ministry official was arrested for allegedly taking $530,000 in bribes from a nursing home developer in exchange for lucrative government subsidies.

As Japan's new prime minister-designate, Morihiro Hosokawa, prepared Friday to lead a coalition government, business leaders here questioned whether the former provincial governor is up to the difficult task of managing Japan's ailing economy. Business executives are particularly concerned that Hosokawa and his coalition's single-minded focus on electoral reform would result in their giving short shrift to the economy.